Arguments more exciting than their sex life ... John Hopkins and Tuppence Middleton in The One.
Photograph: Tristram Kenton for the Guardian

In Vicky Jones’s vicious relationship drama, originally staged in 2014, the audience never know when to laugh. Over the course of one night in one room, Jo (Tuppence Middleton) and Harry (John Hopkins), chuck jokes, insults and each other around. Their arguments are more exciting than their sex life, with Jo munching and throwing Wotsits as they watch porn together. Waiting for a text to announce that Jo’s sister has given birth, their evening is repeatedly interrupted by Kerry (Julia Sandiford), Harry’s former lover, who still has her eye fixed on him. Savage comments ricochet into the early hours of the morning and centre stage are the gaps between laughter and fear, wit and cruelty, sex and rape – mere inches apart on the red leather sofa.

At first, Harry and Jo get off by challenging each other, and Kerry’s purpose is to re-equip the couple when they run out of ammo. But Harry’s aggression spills into his actions. He hurts Jo, hits her. A hand in her pants moves to her neck and doesn’t let go. Some she asks for, some she doesn’t. His control over her body feels like vengeance. But despite what most would see as domestic violence – if not sexual assault then “sexual something” as Kerry says – they settle disturbingly quickly back into intimacy and laughter.

The corny soundtrack of Phantom of the Opera plays over scene changes where nothing but the clock moves. The beautiful but unnecessary luminous moon and laser-cut sitting room simply distract from the piercing dialogue and Steve Marmion’s neat direction.

The One asks some valuable questions – where the boundary of assault lies and how far regret absolves you – but by focusing largely on the sadistic games of a bored middle-class couple, it limits the conversation around domestic violence.

Wanting violent sex, rape fantasies and being raped are incredibly different things. An hour isn’t long enough to unpick all these issues, and instead the play throws them up in the air like the Wotsits that are caught on a tongue or peeled off a sticky leg for later.